Book of Night(4)

“I don’t want to get him into trouble,” Doreen said primly, as though she wasn’t trying to persuade a criminal to find her criminal boyfriend.

Charlie folded her arms across her chest and waited.

Finally, Doreen nodded slowly. “I guess I could ask.”

Which could mean a lot of things. Charlie opened the trunk of her janky Toyota Corolla. Her collection of burner phones rested beside a tangle of jumper cables, an old bag of burglary supplies, and a bottle of Grey Goose she’d bought wholesale off the bar.

Charlie took out one of the phones and punched in the code to activate it. “Okay, let me try something and see if Adam bites. Tell me his number.”

If he answered, she told herself, she’d do it. If he didn’t, she’d walk away.

She knew she was just looking for an excuse to get into trouble. Wading into quicksand to see if she’d sink. She texted him anyway: I’ve got a job and I heard you were the best.

If he was worried about not being good enough, then the flattery would be motivating. That was the nature of con artistry, playing on weakness. It was also a bad way to train your brain to think about people.

“Let’s see if he responds and—” Charlie started to say when her phone pinged.

Who is this?



Amber, Charlie texted back. She had several identities that she’d built for con and never used. Of them, Amber was the only gloamist. Sorry to bother you so late, but I really need your help.

Amber, with the long brown hair?



Charlie stared at her phone for a long moment, trying to decide if this was a trick.

You really are as good as they say. She added a winking emoji and hoped ambiguity would allow her to sidestep any of his questions.

“I can’t believe he’s texting you. What is he saying?”

“Take a look,” Charlie told Doreen, handing over the phone. “See? He’s alive. He’s fine.”

Doreen bit her fingernail as she read through the messages. “You didn’t say you were going to flirt with him.”

Charlie rolled her eyes.

On the other side of the parking lot, Odette, swathed in an enormous cocoon coat, made her way to her purple Mini Cooper.

“You really think you can get him to tell you where he’s staying?”

Charlie nodded. “Sure. I can even go there and hog-tie him, if that’s what you want. You’ll have to do me a better favor for that, though.”

“Suzie says asking you for help is like summoning up the devil. The devil might grant your wish, but afterward, you’re out a soul.”

Charlie bit her lip, looked up at the streetlight. “Like you said, I barely know Suzie. She must be thinking of somebody else.”

“Maybe,” Doreen said. “But all that stuff you did—even back in the day, the stuff people said—you’ve got to be angry at someone.”

“Or I could have done it for fun,” Charlie said. “Which would be pretty messed up, right? And since I am doing you a good turn, it’d be polite not to mention it.”

Doreen gave one of those exhausted sighs that mothers of little kids seemed to have welling up in them at all times. “Right. Sure. Just bring him home before he winds up like you.”

Charlie watched Doreen go, then got into her Corolla. Buckled her seat belt. Tried not to think about the job Balthazar was offering, or who she used to be. Thought instead of the ramen she was going to boil when she got home. Hoped her sister had fed the cat. Imagined the mattress waiting for her on the floor of her bedroom. Imagined Vince, already asleep, feet tangled in the sheets. Shoved her key in the ignition.

The car wouldn’t turn on.





2

KING OF CUPS, REVERSED




The wind whirled down the tunnel of Cottage Street, stinging Charlie’s cheeks, sending hair into her face.

Her Corolla still sat in the parking lot of Rapture. No matter how many times she twisted the key or slammed her hands against the dashboard. Jumper cables hadn’t done a thing to resuscitate the car, and tow trucks were expensive.

She’d considered calling Vince, or even a cab, but instead she’d gotten the vodka out of the trunk and done a couple of sulky shots straight out of the bottle, standing there feeling sorry for herself. Looking up at the sky.

The last of the leaves had turned brown; only a few still hung on branches, drooping like sleeping bats.

A car had slowed at the stop sign. The driver called out a vulgar proposal before he hit the gas. She flipped him off, although it seemed unlikely he noticed.

It was nothing Charlie hadn’t heard before anyway. She saw herself reflected in her car windows. Dark hair. Dark eyes. A lot of everything else: breast and butt and belly and thigh. Too often, people acted like her curves were some engraved invitation. They seemed to forget that everyone gets born into bodies they can’t just kick off like slippers, figures they can’t transform as though they were shadows.

Another gust of wind sent a few leaves into the air, although most clotted together along the edges of the road.

And that was when Charlie had decided it would be a great idea to hoof it the mile and a half home.

It was a nothing walk, after all. A stroll.

Or it would have been, for someone who hadn’t been on her feet all day and half the night.